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Tuesday, 19 January 2016

Textbook, online or both ?

1. Origin source
for this article

This
is the age of electronics and internet. Whether to use textbook only, online
only or both is a question that everyone involved in the teaching-learning
process must face and find a solution that can ensure fruitful learning.

I
decided to share with you sources and thoughts contained therein. The idea came
to me as I was perusing through my copy-pasted collection of threads from ELT
Resources at Linkedin. In ELT Resources, Nick Edwards raised this issue of
position of textbook in the classroom in a thread with this blog post: So is the
ELT textbook dead, or not?bebcblog.wordpress.com/ http://t.co/fYZLoTQCH3.

Using
Pearson as a sample, John H Walsh, Managing Director of The Bournemouth English
Book Centre Ltd (BEBC), hints at the emerging attitude of all concerned towards
the death of books and arrival of the tablet, invites visitors to the blog to
share their thoughts and views on how ready teachers are for the tablet
and whether teachers and their institutions have the necessary skills, broadband
speed, budget and inclination to go wholly or partly digital.

Here
is the summary of the responses:

1.
Interesting

2. As far as
books being dead is concerned, I think they’re safe until a way is found for

apps
to get the student interaction element right.

3. There are certainly
challenges to be overcome with regard to training and costs when

using tablets. While textbook may continue in the classroom, it cannot be said
learning is

difficult using tablets.

4. The use of one does
not rule out the use of the other, the trick being to use tablets to

supplement and consolidate
the more “traditional” methodologies.

5. Using a tablet instead of a
course book is an interesting thought. But how far it’ll be a

viable substitution or
addition is a question, especially in a country like India where

majority of learners even
in cities come from very poor financial background. This

situation is not going to
change any time soon, which might be the case in most

developing countries.

The other
conditions like educating learners and teachers in the employment of

the tablet as a learning
and teaching tool come into the picture only later. (mine)

Reading a book versus a screen: Different
reading devices, different modes of reading?

Date: October 21, 2011 Source: Universität Mainz

The study analyzed the differences in reading from
various kinds of media (e-book, tablet PC, paper) in two sample groups, young
and elderly adults. Each participant read various texts with different levels
of complexity on an e-book reader (Kindle 3), on a tablet PC (iPad), and on
paper. The reading behavior and the participants' corresponding neural
processes were assessed by means of concurrent measures of eye movements (eye
tracking) and electrophysiological brain activity (EEG). The criteria that were
taken into account and analyzed were changes in the theta frequency band power,
reading behavior, text comprehension, and information recall as well as the
participants' preferences for the respective medium.

Though almost all participants stated that reading
from paper was more comfortable than from an e-ink reader the study actually
showed that there was no difference in terms of reading performance between
reading from paper and from an e-ink reader. "We have thus demonstrated
that the subjective preference for the printed book is not an indicator of how
fast and how well the information is processed," concludes Professor
Schlesewsky.

Despite the hype about e-books, the classic textbook hasn't gone away.
In fact, the hold-it-in-your-hands book remains the first choice for many
instructors and students.

The
writer quotes teachers of several knowledge disciplines who indicate that
students still prefer printed books though digital versions are available.

Here’s
a summary of the responses from readers of this post:

1. With a paper text, it’s easier to flip back
and forth any number of times

2.
With a paper text it’s easier to annotate, write notes.

3. You
don't need margins (which is, I take it, what you mean by "open
space" in ebooks to take notes. You just highlight the text on which you
want to comment and then start typing your note. You get an entirely new screen
in which to type your note.

4. When
reading from a computer screen we tend to "skim" and constantly have
to go back to reread parts for comprehension or depth.

5.
kongzi the_truth_ferretI'm also interested in finding
studies (if there are any) that don't necessarily conclude that electronic is
inferior. My own personal experience suggests that reading electronic
texts often has disadvantages relative to printed text.

6. Students will select a digital
format if it's free, BECAUSE it's free, not because they really prefer it.

7. Unlike
digital sources, several paper texts can be used at a time and cross-referring
is smoother. They are always available. Digital ‘data bases’ can disappear ;
however, digital is good for portability.

8.
Kindle for light reading and paper text for serious reading

9.
print for anything with graphs, sidebars, images
with captions, etc., because ebooks and ebook readers don't display those
things very well yet in my experience.

Fifty university students from the discipline of Tourism read a research
article in English taken from an online journal. Half the students read it in a
printed format and the other half read
it in its online version. The results of an English academic reading test revealed
that the hypertextual medium 1) did not affect learners' overall reading
comprehension, and 2) promoted the use of reading strategies, including both
top-down and bottom-up strategies. These results are discussed and suggestions
for further research are given.

1) less expensive than regular books, 2) take up no
space, 3) far more convenient in that I can carry almost my entire library with
me everywhere, 4) searchable (a tremendous boon to my research), and 5) much
easier to read in bed 6) instant availability of ebooks accelerates the speed
of my research activity.

By Min-chen Tseng, National Taiwan University of Arts
published in The Reading Matrix, Volume 10, Number 1, April 2010

This
study investigated how online reading affected EFL students’ reading comprehension
and reported the difficulties eighty-eight first year Taiwanese EFL students. The
major difficulties included eyestrain, inability to take notes or underline
text, and skipping lines when reading hypertext on computer screens.

Possible
solution are also offered: 1. Teachers should choose appropriate web sites so
students do not waste time and can focus on reading. 2. Adjusting the setting
of computer screens and of web pages is equally important. Results obtained in
this study clearly suggest that students experienced eye strain, felt visibly
tired and this affected their reading performance. There are several tips for
reducing eyestrain (Natural Eye Care, 2009; Poynton, 1997; Ankrum, n.d.). 3. Schools
could provide custom-made courses to train students how to look for and mine
information on the Internet and how to read through its many hyperlinks.

Here there are two groups of people: one personal thoughts
based on their classroom experience, and the other results from studies. We
need to take the ‘thoughts’ with a pinch of salt. In these studies where
students have been involved in investigations or studies indicate preference to
one or the other or both.

How far do we give credence to the results? The
samples have not been huge, the right questions may not have been asked, the
day they were tested may or may not have the best day for them, if these tests
were conducted in another batch of students of the same institution, in another
institution, in another district, in another country, the results could be very
different.

The other aspect is the question in the title. This is appropriate only
in those environments where electronic facilities are within the reach of students
and institutions. The debate can go on and based on their local philosophies,
the decision can be one way or the other. But the question doesn’t apply to
those environments where electronic facilities are not within the reach of
students and institutions.

About Me

I hail from Thamizh Nadu, a Southern state of India. I speak Thamizh, Thelugu, English and Hindi.

I served for 43 years as a teacher of English in schools and colleges in India, Ethiopia and Nigeria. I've published several articles on ELT and of general interest in the USA, Ethiopia and India. I've presented several papers in national and international conferences. I've written several course books for the English syllabuses of Bachelor of Engineering of Madras University, Anna University and JNTU, Hyderabad, for public consumption as well.